Bloody Lights
by Slavka11
Summary: The wound barely left the Hunter able to walk, and with common infected always waiting for a meal his only chance is to try and get help from his own prey- humans. AU with a hunter OC, rated for gore and profanities.
1. Introduction

Intro

Since my story is pretty AU, I'm going to explain the differences between my story and the game before you all can think of flaming me with: HUNTERS ARE INFECTED AND CAN'T THINK THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE THEM TO! or the much debated: HUNTERS DON'T HAVE EYES!

First of all, I'm going to explain the hunters. Unlike the game, the hunters in my story are pretty smart, just as smart as a noninfected but they think in different ways than normal humans. Also, there are two different classifications of hunters, social individuals and solitary individuals.

The social hunters go after their prey like a pack of wolves or dogs and have a loose hierarchy based on fighting ability. These hunters are generally more docile than solitary individuals and can maintain a much larger territory. The packs also use numbers to their advantage and can usually kill as many survivors as there are hunters.

The solitary hunters are as you guessed, the lone wolves. They are usually larger and more agressive than the pack hunters. And although a solitary hunter can nearly always defeat a social individual, they cannot go after large groups of survivors by themselves and usually single out the weaker survivors that have strayed from the group.

I've also made hunters generally smarter than their in-game counterparts. They have the ability to think logically and visualize the actions of other individuals based on variables within the environment. They can also communicate with eachother through basic hand gestures and growls. Instead of being a killing machine, the hunters are able to think somewhat rationally even in a scared/frenzied state.

And for my final point on these AU hunters, I'm going to explain the eyes- yes they have eyes. I've studied screenshots of pictures of hunters under their hood and decided that for all intents of purposes of my story, hunter eyes are red and surrounded by bloody flesh which the hunter clawed at during the pain of turning into an infected as opposed to actually gouging the eyes out. The reason for this is because when you see a hunter in the game, they are some most aware infected to their apocolyptic environment and jump from building to building accurately. I don't think an infected with even some means of echolocation could jump from halfway up a skyscraper directly onto a survivor without vision, and I also find the very idea of hunter echolocation pretty sketchy. A virus doesn't think, it wouldn't mutate an animal so that it would grow parts that are completely unrelated to the other thousands of years of evolution and it wouldn't say to itself, "Gee, I'm taking out the eyes of this dude, I better supply it with some other means to interact accurately within its environment."

Hunters aside for the time being, I've also tweaked the other infected to corrospond with these changes. In the game, the infected are shown to be just a mob of brainless, rabid creatures within which the irregular special infected are thrown in. In this AU I've decided to make them actually form a rough order to their activities. It's simaliar to how the herbivores and carnivores act on the savannah, the wildebeast, zebras, thompsons gazelles and various other prey animals all eat grass, but they eat it in such a way that each species fills a certain niche and does not compete with another species. For example, smokers pull away a single survivor from a small group after a tank has scattered the main party and a hunter pounces the remaining survivor. The common infected are kind of like vultures, going after the leftovers and harassing the survivors before the special infected attack.

Also, the smaller, weaker special infected like smokers, jockeys and hunters are generally smarter than the larger ones like tanks, chargers, etc. This is mostly attributed to the fact that the characteristics the smaller ones use like leaping and um... trapping? snaring? are usually used strategically in-game.

Ok, the massive rant is finally over, time to spell check it. Yay me.

The story officialy begins with the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 1: Prey

**This chapter has been updated :D**

_Chapter 1: Prey_

The world had broken long ago.

The huge, sturdy concrete buildings and glistening sky scrapers that had once teemed with human lives were silent and strangely intimidating. As if looming over the world with a quiet anger.

Blood spattered the roads and disembowled corpses hunched with hollow abdomens in filthy alleys. Crows hacked their throaty calls and tore at soft, rotten flesh tinged green from age. Mice and rats gnawed on bones and tendons, gripping sustenance with powerful teeth and pulling it off in long ribbons before scuttling away.

A soft breeze filtered between the buildings, carrying not the sweet scents of fresh air and misty clouds but of rotting flesh and the thick musk of fear. The night was mostly still, if not for a few gangly bodies trudging their way through the empty, gore littered streets and the piercing screams that sounded from the alleyways. Clouds hid the morose moon from sight and the only thing that lit the city were the few street lights that cast sickly a yellow glow on the wet pavement and combated frailly against the omnipresent shadows.

The Hunter jumped across the gap between two buildings, his powerfully built legs propelling him inhumanely forwards. He landed with a slight thud, tired after a frusterating night of searching for prey, dodging tanks and struggling with the numerous other infected. It was weeks after the infection struck and he had come to be and weeks after the humans had been all but destroyed. Only the stubborn few remained to eke out an existance in the infected city, and they were the very strongest and most cunning of the species.

Like most hunters he wore a navy sweatshirt, the logo that had long ago been branded onto the back now hidden with violent splatters of old- and fresh- blood. The hood of the sweatshirt was pulled up, encompassing most of his face save for his mouth. Under the hood his skin was a darkish grey, coated with many hunts worth of mud, blood and the standard skin discolorations of the infected. The only other things that differentiated him from a normal human being were the strips of soiled duct tape wrapped around his legs and arms and his abnormal physique. Instead of walking with a stiff, straight back like humans and even most of the infected, the Hunters spine curled down into a hunch and he found running and jumping on four legs easier than with just two.

Despite being an infected though, he wasn't that much stronger than a human and was relatively small, standing only 5'1. But the he did not need to be tall or overly buff to be deadly, his lean yet stocky anatomy accompanied by sharp bones that protruded from his fingertips allowed him to scale vertical walls without strain and leap impossible distances.

He peered over the brick rim of the building, scanning the streets in hopes of prey, but none relinquished itself. The Hunter let out a thin, guttural hiss and whipped around as a sob rang through the air. He was instantly on high alert, his eyes probing the streets below him and the roof tops about him. He was in a bad mood after miserably failing at a hunt when a smoker had snared him in mid pounce. Stupid smoker! He could be eating right now!

Utilizing his acute sense of hearing, he pinpointed the sound of the crying and gathered his strength into his legs, expelling the energy in a powerful leap. The Hunter landed on the next rooftop and eyed the crying form warily- witches had always puzzled him, they were among the most hostile infected but only when disturbed. They never went out to kill and seemed more preoccupied with sobbing and ignoring the world.

What was she crying about? The Hunter pawed forwards, a muscle in his cheek tightening to reveal his elongated, blood stained teeth. For once, he didn't feel hostile towards the other infected, just curious. Besides, it wasn't as if he could do anything about a witch in his hunting grounds, she could slice him into a pulp in a matter of seconds.

The stick like limbs of the witch criss crossed eachother like some sadistic weaving, they were offsettingly skinny, the skinny that comes from months of malnourishment and starvation. Her hair was a dead straw tone, the locks falling in limp, lifeless mats and curling listlessly about her hidden face. Her fingers were elongated into massive crimson claws and layed unproportionately against her bare thighs.

The Hunter recoiled when another convulsion shuddered through the witches body, he heard dry moans and the wet smashes as tears were swallowed. He knew full well that witches were dangerous- some of the most dangerous of all the infected- and had suffered their sudden rages like most other infected had, but something drew him to the witch. He wanted to know more about this mysterious infected that felt no hunger like the rest of them, only sudden rage.

Keeping his muscles tensed for quick retreat, he closed the distance between himself and the witch so that they were only a couple feet apart. It was strange, this feeling that urged him to get close to this danger, this girl with claws nearly as long as her arms. Why was he so ignorantly incuring the threat of death without a solid reason?

The Hunter felt panic shoot up his spine and trickle down every extremity of his body when a wet patch of concrete betrayed him and tripped him. He caught himself before he fell to the ground, but the sound that the violent movement produced was more than enough.

The witch whipped around and screamed at him, her claws slicing the air inches from his hidden face and ropy hair flying. The Hunter skidded backwards on giddy legs before running off without a second thought, adrenaline powering his legs and heart booming in his ears. He was stupid! Stupid and foolish! Hadn't the danger of witches been imprinted deeply enough before in his brain before! He'd seen a gang of three armed humans had startle a witch and been reverted back into the tangled mess of fleshy material from which they had come! He had been idiotic to think for a moment- however fleeting- that the witch wouldn't tear him apart given the chance.

He screeched in excitement as he leapt clear over the empty road and landed onto the deck of an apartment. His fear though, soon melted away. He was a solitary hunter and he may of been weaker than a witch but he was smarter and faster in all regards. He was the most agile and fastest of all the varieties of infected, able to leap from building to building and sometimes even kill humans with just the impact of a pounce.

For a moment he was persuaded to leap back to the witch and attack her for daring to scream and slash at him, but he caught himself. He might of been an infected but he wasn't stupid, jockeys were the ones that pestered the witches, along with the commons that still contained some vestige of the lust they had once acted upon. But not him, he was smarter than them, he was better.

He stared out into the city from the apartment deck and contemplated for a moment. Why had he felt the sudden desire to approach the witch and _if_ it hadn't attacked him (which it would have no matter the circumstance) what would he had done? His train of thought slowly dissipated when he couldn't grasp a possible answer. He studied a clay flower pot set on the floor of the deck for a moment. It was obviously made by humans, with human colors and writing splayed hapazardly across the side. Dead, shrivelled flowers hung limply from equally dead stalks.

Somewhere inside him told him that the flowers should mean something to him, that they should evoke some sort of feeling. But he could only stare at them blankly- why would humans make such things? Did they have a use? A function? He shook his head, humans were insane creatures and he would only ever raise unanswered questions by thinking about them. They were for consumption alone.

The Hunter grunted and climbed up onto the railing, steadying himself with outstretched arms. He leapt up the building, getting a boost from the other apartment decks occasionally or else just digging his bony claws between the cracks in the wall and hoisting himself upwards. He dodged around the glassy membranes strung across the gaps in the wall and felt the texture of the bricks imprinting into his palms.

When he scaled the building, his stomach reminded him of how hungry he was. The Hunter clutched his gut with his clawed hand to try to placate it but to no avail, it had been over a week since he had eaten and since that stupid smoker had spoiled his last hunt, he would most likely have to wait until a whole new group of humans appeared before he got another chance.

He had even gone to such extreme ends before as to actually attempting to eat one of the other infected. He had thrown up promptly after and even when he tried to eat it in moderation the same conclusion quickly asserted itself. The Hunter grimaced at the memory, it was not one that he was particularily proud of.

The Hunter sniffed the air, inhaling deeply until his chest expanded. Being a hunter, he had an acute sense of smell along with hearing, enabling him to pinpoint prey wherever it was located.

But to his annoyance, the city was still silent. The residential areas surrounding the inner city that he had claimed as his hunting grounds had been empty for ages. It seemed that every day, there were less humans to attack.

His mouth flooded with saliva as he thought of human flesh. The warmth of it as it struggled beneath him and the frantic spasms of the heart, his fingers clenched the cold ground as he remembered slicing his claws through resistant flesh, the guts flying and blood whipping upwards into his face. He nearly tore himself apart.

It took him a moment to realize that he was growling softly to himself with bared teeth. Irritably he wiped the spit from his jaws and began to travel across the rooftops once more, leaping from building to building with massive leaps and perfect accuracy. He'd find prey somehow.

A sound caught his ears. Not the ordinary grunts and screams of the infected that his ears had long ago learned to drown out, nor the crashes as the city naturally began to degrade.

No, this was human. Very, very human.

Shouts intermingled with the blast of bullets peppering the air, he could tell by the edge to their voice that they were retreating. They were scared. The smell of fear attracted him like a moth to a flame. It set every muscle in his body quivering and made him anxious and irritable. He had to go after those humans, he had to feel the thrill as their bodies fled from him, he had to bite their vibrating throats and crush their delicate windpipes.

The Hunter dashed forwards, a tingling in his skin that made him hyperactive, every fiber in his body registering every touch, every taste, every sound, every sight. A battle cry ripped through him and he leapt into the air, his sights set on the flimsy curve of a streetlight.

There they were, the oblivious humans. By the smell of them three males and a single female, all were raining bullets onto the horde that had swiftly concentrated around them. They were situated right in the centre of the street, it was as if they were trying to attract more and more infected. But they seemed more experienced than most, there was a snap as one of them cut a smokers tongue with a blade when it ran out of ammo and numerous shrieks as the common infected fell victim to one of the humans blinking bombs.

It was mayhem, roars echoed down the streets and the constant beating of human hearts boomed in his ears. Countless common infected swarmed from their lairs in the long abandoned buildings and formed a snarling horde that struggled to surround their difficult prey. Blood and saliva sprayed from jaws as the humans fought tooth and nail when there was simply not enough time to replenish their weapons. Black ravens swooped down from their circles in the sky to tug on loose eyes and squabble over slithering guts.

He couldn't take his eyes off the humans or think about anything other than the warmth radiating from their skin and the fear in their dilating pupils. A hunger deeper than the need for sustenance roared inside him, the hunger to chase and terrify his prey, to feel its body completely at his mercy and destroy it. His claws clicked against the metal of the streetlight and he felt the cold numbing the palms of his hands, he could vividly recount the memory of ripping those same claws through the chest of a human.

The Hunter waited. He wasn't strong enough to face more than one armed individual. If it was purely hand to hand combat it would be a different story but for now he was content to lie low. He had long since learned not to rush into a battle, he would wait for a tank or some other infected to break them up. Despite himself, though, his mouth watered and muscles contracted with the movements of the humans.

Another hunter screamed in the distance causing him to tense. This was his territory and no others! He naturally began to prepare himself to chase after the other hunter and drive it away but the sound of a particularly loud yell from the human party held his attention. He grunted, he could chase away the other hunter later, and if it did manage to catch something he would steal its kill then kill it.

He wasn't necessarily larger than the other hunters, in fact he had met many hunters bigger than himself, but instead of relying on mass to dominate opponents like tanks, boomers and a couple other infected hunters prefered to outwit and out maneuvere their foes. Yet there were exceptions, sometimes speed and intellect was simply too evenly matched for the hunters to determine the fight on just those variables alone, and those that were often ended up fighting to the death, killing one by a freak accident or eventually accepting the other hunter as a packmember.

The humans began to stray from his sight when the party rounded the corner of a building. Good, that meant one could easily fall behind and finally give him a chance to kill. He licked his lips in anticipation and tasted the reminants of his past kills smeared around his jaws.

The Hunter dislodged himself from his perch and felt the wind scream past his ears and ground slowly rise up to meet him. But instead of landing on the ground where he would have an level albeit dangerous view of the humans he seized hold of a fire escape in an alley and hung from it. It was always better to be safe than sorry, even if you were a hunter.

His eyes locked from one human to the other, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses as a wolf would a herd of deer. That's all the humans really were- a herd of deer.

A broad shouldered male covered in strange makings was trigger happy and powered by adrenaline, the Hunter didn't give it any second thoughts, even if he managed to pin the man it would be a ferocious hand to hand battle in which he did not feel like partaking in. Especially when surrounded by crazed commons and the omnipresent threat of a tank materializing.

Another male was clearing a path through the horde, it had silver hair and though physically lesser than the tattooed male, this older male was more wary and attacked its opponents with calculating strokes. The Hunter refrained from pouncing on this one as well, he might be able to overpower the older male but not outwit it. These humans were tough.

Gradually he narrowed it down to a young female with a bright pink jacket and thin limbs. The female was precise with its shots and didn't show any fear, but was still inexperienced compared to the others and its lack of strength would provide him with an easy meal once he had unarmed it.

Now all he had to do was wait for the female to wander, run or lag behind.


	3. Chapter 2: Stricken

**Edited this chapter**

Chapter 2: Stricken

The Hunter let out a satisfied growl when he finally heard the distant bellows of a tank and the slight vibrations reverberating through his perch. The sound set him on edge and made him even more excited than the smell of human blood and fear that swelled from the fleeing party achieved, but he knew to stay put. A tank was not something to get in the way of.

Another, even louder roar than before erupted and the massive infected came into view. The common infected screamed as the huge gorilla arms of the unnaturally buff man swiped them to the side like ants. For its size, the tank was incredibly fast and easily caught up to the humans that were now fleeing for their lives.

The humans were now fighting for their lives and instead of being able to focus on the lesser special infected, they were all preoccupied with the dominating threat of the tank. It was the perfect scenario for a hunter like himself and he couldn't help but grin sadisticaly.

The Hunter followed them from the rooftops, watching as the tiny ants below him waged war and struggled to destroy eachother. His smile quickly reverted back to his default scowl when his stomach alerted him again to the aching void that it surrounded, suddenly jumping right into the thick of the battle didn't seem half as bad as it did before.

But to his relief, he didn't have to wait long, the female and sturdy male with entwining markings on its arms split from the dark skinned male and older male when the tank charged them head on. Their tiny bullets hardly did any damage against the sheer mass of the tank. The Hunter watched as the humans prepared to light the tank on fire while simultaneously keeping as much distance between themselves and aforementioned monstrosity. Their boots skidded on the pavement wet from tainted blood and their clothes were coated with a crackling layer of gore. Panic and fear painted their faces and limbs unused to such strain trembled with exhaustion.

The common infected groaned as they tried vainly to attack the humans, they had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Yellow eyes flashed malignantly, rotting limbs stretched out like demented tree branches and blood choked maws roared gibberish. The common fought eachother as they poured from the dark places of the city and smothered the unlucky few in their mindless attraction. The Hunter found them repulsive, they were so weak and stupid that it was disgusting.

The female hunched down quickly to remedy an open wound on a sidewalk while the tattooed male covered her. A scream escaped him, causing the male to look wildly around and fire a couple warning shots into the air. One of the bullets hit the brick wall not three metres away from him, the sound nearly caused him to jump straight up into the air.

The other two humans, the dark skinned male and old male threw a bottle with a blazing string sticking out from the mouth. The bottle arced high through the air and landed just short of the tank whom was caught in the middle of grasping a car. Glass shattered and translucent triangles exploded over the ground. Suddenly, fire blazed up from nothingness and encircled the hulking body of the tank. Bellows edged with a breaking shriek of pain ripped from the tanks throat and it clawed at the orange demons spreading about its thick skin. It immediately charged towards the female, tongue flapping to the side of its nonexistant neck like a morbid flag and standard issue human legs struggling to keep up with the immense arms.

The Hunter shrieked over the sounds of the tank and seized the moment to pounce. His claws skythed outstretched through the air and face contorted into a scream.

The females body gave easily under his, her scrawny legs buckling and weapon flying from her clenched palms. A strangled groan forced its way from her mouth when the wind was knocked out of her and he saw her eyes flicker as she tried to make sense through the concussion she was no doubt having. He snarled in victory and envisioned the veins and tendons pulsing lightly under her pale neck, muscles and organs wrapped around the smooth bones and his jaws pulling it all apart. His stomach roared and flesh twitched with his eagerness to douse his hunger.

But before his claws could so much as initiate the descent downwards that would eventually disembowl her, a huge flaming fist flew through the air and sent him flying.

The Hunter hit the windows of the drug store with a crash, breaking the thick material and landing heavily on the ground. A ringing in his ears drowned out the screams and roars of the battle and the million jolts of pain that slashed unmercifully at his side bested even the pain born from the tanks punch and impact when he hit the glass. Blood began to soak through his sweatshirt, welling up around the jagged chunks of glass imbedded within his flesh.

He lay there for a couple seconds, his mind caught in a continuous loop. Until the ferocity of the infection roused him and he wearily pushed himself up on shaking limbs. The Hunter nearly collapsed the moment he did so. Incredible pain spasmed through him and he lurched forwards and half-fell onto the payment counter of the store. He clutched his stomach and felt blindly for the evil slivers of glass, the slick blood from his abdomen coating his fingers and making everything as slippery as a fish. What had happened? Where was he now and why was his body suddenly so frail when he had just been about to feast?

Finally he was able to get a grasp on a chunk with slick fingers and yank it out. More pain electrified through him and he let himself slide to the ground limply. The Hunter panted heavily and after vainly trying to steady his breathing, began to search for another piece of glass. He was disconcerted when he found he couldn't steady his hands and began to panic when his entire body felt faint. He wasn't in control of his own limbs! What was happening to him! He had taken bullets before without any of these symptoms, he had landed onto solid ground from halfway up a skyscraper, he had constantly been attacked and chased by other infected, choked and whipped by smokers, spat on, jumped on, punched, bitten and even clawed by other hunters without suffering this extreme weakness that turned his blood to lead and made his head swirl*.

His vision began to fail him, colors lost their integrity and shadows ate all the light. A sharp sound rang in his ears and beneath it, he heard the drum of his own heart rumbling and the creak of his joints. Blood pressed wetly against his tongue and his sharp teeth ground numbly against eachother.

The Hunter snarled and spat out a mouthful of spit and blood, a tooth suddenly dislodging itself as well and landing in the crimson smear. He clenched his stomach in one hand and tried to encourage the blood to slow and coagulate, after a deep breath he stepped up and hobbled forwards.

The pain was intense, the worst he had ever felt by far. He needed a way to stop it, to stop this pain that was clouding his thoughts and obstructing everything but the need to get somewhere he knew. He stopped- what was he doing?

He had no way to clean his wounds, the blood had slowed somewhat due to the smothering fabric of his hoodie but everytime he twitched, the thin scabs tore and let loose another wave of blood. He had been instinctively leaving the drug store by virtue of the fact that it was an unfamiliar place, but maybe he could find something to heal his wounds... no his hands were shaking too much. He needed water, water to wash away all the pain and alien things that were trying to become part of him.

The Hunter felt like throwing up the bile that substituted what should be food in his stomach. He lurched out onto the street to find it empty and silent, with only the fuzzy sillouettes of common infected wandering around. The survivors must had escaped safely for there was no scent of human blood and the smell of burning tank flesh smoked from farther up the street.

The world stretched ominously and he nearly tipped over, gray buildings bent over him and yellow eyes glared from shadowy areas.

He held his head in his palm and leveled his vision. What had that female been using to patch her wounds? It had been a brightly colored rectangular pack hadn't it? The Hunter strained to remember that miniscule detail, pack, sack, kit. Kit! That was what the thing was, a med-kit, now all he had to do was find one and make it work for him...

He balked, he was a Hunter, his hands were already ill-suited for handling small objects in the first place. And now that he was faint, simply having a roll of gauze and disinfectant wouldn't help much. He needed someone to help him.

Help, the word was strange. Infected didn't help, they caught, ate and fought over the scraps. That was all. Help was something totally alien to him, a notion completely unrelated to feelings of hate or ambition. It was something that humans did when another was in need, something that infected recalled only as an blurry memory.

The Hunter longed to reject the idea, he was a solitary and could deal with his own problems. He didn't need anyone else to care for him or make sure he was ok, all he needed was himself to rely on.

His stomach rolled and he kneeled on the sidewalk and started retching, waves of energy pushing the bile from his stomach and out through his mouth. The Hunter exhaled and laid down on the cracked cement, he didn't care if any of the infected saw him or not, he was too exhausted to do anything about it anyway. Eventually though, pain forced him up again. His muscles screamed in protest but his self-preservation was the greater of the two, it all boiled down to putting up with some pain or dying. Dying would always be the least desired route and he would do whatever he could to avoid it. He would not become one of the forgotten corpses that were thrown carelessly on the ground, he would not die to enter that forboding nothingness that every living thing down to the scavenging rat feared. No, he would live.

He needed to get to the humans and whether they killed or helped him, it was better than fainting on the streets to be eaten by some lowly infected while other hunters claimed his land. He bared his teeth and began to stumble forwards, wincing and letting out a moan as a million darts of fire shot through his flesh.

The human smell was thick in the air and easy to follow, he just hoped that he wouldn't have to climb anything on his way to whatever saferoom they had retreated to. Long minutes passed and he didn't seem to be getting anywhere, just deeper and deeper into new levels of pain and fatigue.

Some of his wounds had stopped bleeding, mostly the ones located farthest away from the joints of his body but although the raw, open flesh no longer chaffed against the material of his hoodie they still hurt terribly. Gradually each bolt of pain and dragging step blended together into some contorted dream, an unreal reality where everything happened at random intervals and time itself was butchered into slices. One more step, he kept telling himself, one more.

Thats when a solid object connected with his face, disracting him from the sharp pain of the rest of his body with the sudden soreness of his nose. The Hunter examined the object with shaking claws and identified it as a door, heat and human smell radiating from the cracks along the edges. He pressed his body against it and panted, webs of blood drooling from his mouth and spattering to the ground.

Good, now all he had to do was get the humans attention before finally being able to succumb to the darkness that laced his vision. He used the very last resevoir of strength to tackle the door with a mixture of force and sheer weight. He felt his body buckling and began to fall to the ground, hand extended and vainly clawing in his descent.

The cold concrete met him with open arms, sucking the warmth from his body and enveloping him in a dark sleep. He hoped he didn't drown in his own blood.

**:D cliffhangers yay!**

***In the game, even as one of the infected with the least HP, hunters can still stand a helluva lot more damage than average Bob. And I imagine they have to put up with a lot of injuries from just hanging out with a bunch of rabid mutants all day so its natural that they would be pretty resistant to damage. Although, when you're bitchslapped by a tank, thrown into a window and used as a human (er, infected) pin cushion, theres not a whole lot that toughness will achieve. But since each individual wound (I mean the chunks of glass imbedded into the hunter not the punch from the tank) is fairly minor and all together they succeed in weakening and eventually causing the hunter to faint, he has time make some horrible decisions before he dies from blood loss.**


	4. Chapter 3: Prisoner

**Edited this chapter**

**Thank you to both Moya K and L4dfanz for reviewing my story! You have no idea how much those reviews made me smile.**

Chapter 3: Prisoner

Light.

There was light in his eyes.

The Hunter groaned from the throbbing pain that the light pounded into his eyes. Where was he? Why was everything hurting?

He opened his eyes and growled out of reflex. Everything was blurred, the colors of objects escaping from their contours and streaming onto eachother. Cold cement grated against his shoulder and a mix of grit and blood caught between his jaws. He was in some sort of bright room, he couldn't focus on it properly though.

A sillouette towered over him, eclipsing the noxious light. He would have been relieved if not for the gun glaring at his face.

What was he doing here? Pain tremored through his body- was he wounded? The Hunter felt glass protruding his side and a soreness enveloping his shoulder and chest. Yes, he was wounded and with a human pointing a gun at him.

But how had it happened?

A voice sounded from past the light, harsh and deep. The human stammered something back, its own voice high and shaky in comparison. He moaned as a throbbing migraine squeezed his brain and tightly shut his eyes, rolling back into unconciousness for a wonderful moment.

It came back to him with a jolt, a tank had thrown him into the air and glass had sliced him open. The Hunter felt the fabric of his hoodie crackle with dried blood and a monster snarl in his stomach. He needed help. But the human above him looked less than obliging, he wouldn't have surprised if it shot him then and there- if he had time to be surprised, that is.

Help. He needed help. But how was he going to get that across to the humans? If he were in full health he wouldn't of hesitated to attack and disembowl the human, he had no reason to expect help.

Another figure stood behind the first, it was taller and more intimidating but didn't carry a gun, as if waiting for the smaller human to enact the deed. The Hunter realised that the only way that he could possibly get them to help him would be to speak to them. But he was so tired... all he wanted to do was to go back to sleep again and die. He didn't care anymore.

A hard object roughly jabbed his shoulder and he snarled, bile and blood catching in his throat. He choked and hacked it onto the smooth floor, feeling his claws skitter across the frictionless substance. The Hunter glanced up and saw the female human staring at him with a mixture of what looked like disgust and pity- it could easily just have been disgust though. He bared his teeth at her and halfheartedly swiped away the gun with his claws. The action left him panting and exhausted.

He was pitiful. He was no better than the common that struggled mindlessly towards their iminent doom, he was no longer a cunning predator but a puny underling bleeding his guts out. The Hunters own self critism angered and empowered him, he wasn't going to die, he was going to do whatever it took to trick the humans into healing him before killing them himself. He was going to speak to them.

The words felt strange in his mouth, his sharp teeth pricking his tongue and blood bubbling in his throat. He wasn't designed for speech, he was designed for demonic screams and throaty growls, not this delicate arrangement of soft grunts. At first the humans didn't seem to understand and glanced warily at eachother and spoke with edged tones.

He struggled to copy their voices, "Rrgh grell..." he snarled, "elp."

The humans faces betrayed even more surprise and the human with the gun slowly withdrew said weapon, but kept her eyes pinioned upon him. He continued to spit out a couple more syllables grafted crudely together before the strain on his lungs left him winded. The humans resorted to a hushed conversation, obviously debating with what to do with him. The shorter human with the gun skipped from tone to tone, while the taller ones voice remained steady.

The Hunter groaned and slowly pulled his hand up to his face, struggling to hide his eyes from the blinding light. This was ridiculous, he was ridiculous. He grunted again, wishing that the humans would make up their decision to shoot him or not, it was a fairly simple after all...

Arms descended around him, his hand flopped to his side and light invaded his vision again, tiny barbed javelins slicing past the lense and into his retina, traveling up the optic nerve and into his brain. The Hunter let out a warbling whine and the arms faltered slightly before resuming and roughly grabbing hold of his hoodie and dragging him further into the evil light.

He curled into a fetal position, the scabs along his back tearing open and the glass imbedded in his abdomen digging iteself ever further through his soft tissue. The hood of his sweatshirt that had previously shielded his face from view now gathered around his neck in bloody folds, he felt exposed and weak. Well of course he felt that, he was in the hands of humans now. But without his hood up he felt... less. Less of a hunter, less of who he was.

Of course amid all his wounds and suffering, this feeling didn't stand out all that much. He was much more preoccupied with struggling to stay awake and fend off the darkness in his head, even though it would be a much easier route. If he was going to meet his death at the hands of these humans, he would rather be awake.

Weakness settled into his bones again, he felt like he was falling.

Yells.

Confusion.

Pain, something kicked him.

More yells.

Muddled movements.

Soft.

The light was in his eyes again, waking him up with a jolt. The Hunter immediately regretted the violent movement and let himself fall limp to the ground.

Where was he? The Hunter surveyed his new environment with stationary eyes. He was in a whitish room, strange human markings scrawled across the walls and spatters of blood coating the floor. He inhaled and identified it to be his own.

He squirmed slightly and suddenly discovered that his sweatshirt no longer concealed his body and that thin cords were wrapped tightly around his wrists. He tensed his arms and struggled against the cords, the rope biting into his flesh and rubbing the skin raw.

The Hunter felt too clean, too exposed. The glass that had recently made a moziac of his skin had been torn out by inexperienced hands and the reminants of disinfectant wipes still clung to his body. Stinging ointment stuck to the inside of gauze strapped around his chest and stomach. The only thing he still wore were his brown pants.

He began to writhe on the ground, fear flashing through him when he discovered that his ankles had met the same fate as his arms. Growls ripped through his chest and he kicked in an attempt to some how gain some leverage on the bonds. He ground his teeth together then screeched in frustration when he realized that blood loss had deigned him too weak to snap the cords with his powerful legs.

He was too clean! Too naked and human! There was nothing to differentiate him from his own prey! He snarled and roared in rage despite the pain that it ignited and struggled into a sitting position, his scarred back pressed up against the wall and arms fighting continiously against their bonds.

An alarming bang came from out of his range of vision, it was followed by a couple yells and some subtler sounds of movement. Feet scuffed the smooth ground and there was the scrape of metal as the door to his confines was opened. He snarled and prepared himself for any attack the humans might launch upon him.

The human female walked catiously into the room, the Hunter glared and her and bared his teeth. He had wanted help from the humans but if he had known that they were going to lock him up and bind his limbs he would of faced his chances without medical help.

The dark skinned male followed shortly in the females footsteps, the two watched him closely as if they didn't know what to do with him. The female said something, he didn't make any effort to understand or call back the innate knowledge of what the humans words meant. They weren't attacking him or pointing any guns at him so it didn't matter what they said amongst themselves.

The dark skinned male said something to the female and she brushed him off, her voice certain. Again she spoke and out of boredom, the Hunter actually listened to what she said. A question of some sort, the sentence containing references to her and himself.

The Hunter glared directly at her, feeling her mood change from curiosity to uncomfort. He comtemplated trying to speak to the human again, maybe they would discharge him from this cruel and unusual punishment and cut him from the tight cords. Then he would whip around and slash them in the face before disembowling them all and feasting on their guts... his stomach growled wearily.

The female said something a final time. Her words molding into the form of familiar meanings, "Can you understand me?"

How dare she demand something of him, be the payment be in form of words or physical compensation it did not matter, he was the predator and she was just a lowly prey item. Dragging his bloody carcass to their doorstep had been a very last resort, a matter of life and death, he had never agreed to such treatment.

But now was also a simaliar situation, who was to say that the humans wouldn't kill him if he didn't answer?

The Hunter slowly nodded his sore neck, something within him telling him that the response was a positive sign. The female cried something to her dark skinned companion and the male took a step back, unsure of what was happening. He grunted softly to himself and buried his face into his shoulders, trying to shadow his eyes from the constant ache of the horrible light. Why couldn't they just leave him alone?

The female slowly lowered into a crouch, her companion keeping a protective hand on her shoulder. The Hunter could of smiled at that, after being beaten, shredded and drained of blood he was really capable of taking down prey while his limbs were bound.

The female said something relatively complex, it was harder for him to decipher this time, "You aren't going to kill us?"

The Hunter wrinkled his nose and pulled his lips back into a silent snarl. Of course he was going to kill them! Who did they think he was? But he replied nevertheless, his answer negative and head gesture shaking as opposed to nodding. If he could appease them, that might give him a chance to escape.

The dark skinned male said something with words too complex for the Hunter to bother trying to remember and the female replied with a slight grin on her face. He couldn't believe that they had trusted him so readily, were they really that desperate to discover an infected that could communicate? or just plain stupid?

"S- so, if I cut the rope around your wrists you won't attack me?" the female asked.

The dark skinned male glanced questioningly at her.

The Hunter responded slowly. Fine, he'd play their game. It would be a relief to be rid of the chaffing cords but then again, he didn't want her near him. He didn't want her filthy human skin making any contact with his own or for her to grow bold in his presence. The Hunter felt a dark feeling of outrage settle in his chest, who was she to think that she could make bargains with him? Who was she to think that she could tell him what he could or could not do? He was going to kill her the first chance he got.

The dark skinned male seized the female and spoke to her harshly. The female replied in a thoughtful tone but the male responded as he had before. He then pulled her up to her feet and she grudgingly obeyed him, the two leaving the room and shutting the door heavily behind them.

The Hunter relaxed and sank his face into the hard floor, he was suddenly aware of how thirsty he was. He licked his dry lips and felt his throat crack and saliva collect listelessly within his jaws. The feeling of thirst nearly overpowered his need for food and he wondered if the humans planned on keeping him alive or letting him waste away.

He growled and rolled down into a fetal position, his shoulders placed awkwardly against the floor thanks to his bonds. With time to think came time to reflect and he suddenly realized his horrible mistake.

He had attacked a human in the path of a charging tank.

He practically screeched his frustration. His simple, stupid mistake had dropped him into this mess, right now he should be waiting for prey to emerge not lying on the floor of a saferoom with his limbs bound like a prisoner. In fact, he was lucky that he was even still breathing, if he hadn't had the sense (or lack of it) to find some sort of help he could have easily died of his wounds.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The unfamiliar sound of scraping metal roused the Hunter from his dreamless sleep, he rolled around to see the form of the female. She seemed less certain of herself now, her gait even more wary as she entered the room and she carried a small gun and a plastic bag with the handles wrapped around her fingers like she had been twisting it. He immediately tensed with her arrival, he hated her.

She was going to shoot him now, great. The Hunter followed her movements closely but didn't growl.

Slowly the female crouched down again, "I guess you're hungry after losing all that blood,"

What! Of course he was hungry! He was starving, the only reason that he was here was because he had been to hungry to think straight and attempted to steal a kill from a tank. Her naivety coaxed a snarl from his throat.

The female swallowed, "Do you want something to eat?"

The Hunter froze. She was offering him food? Why? Was she trying to kill him through poison so as not to make a mess? But then, if she was the humans would have never cleaned his wounds or kept him as a prisoner, they would have just left him to die. Then he realized that he should reply with a positive answer.

The female seemed unsettled at seeing him answer but didn't hesitate, she pulled a pocket knife from the loud plastic bag and dug the blade from the handle. The Hunter instinctively tensed and bared his teeth when the female stepped closer to him.

"I'm going to cut the cords at your wrists. Swear you won't attack me, if you do I'll shoot you," the female said.

The Hunter paused and contemplated her words before ceasing his growls. He was starving and whatever was in that loud bag of hers smelled like meat. For a moment he was tempted to accept her offer, such was his hunger. But no, she wasn't better than him, she would not succeed in bribing him with such a simple thing like meat. He wasn't going to let her touch him or bring a weapon near his flesh.

He was so hungry though. His lean stomach was beginning to curve inwards and his ribs skythed around his innards just centimetres under his skin. A great void gnawed inside him and hollowed out his body more and more with each passing moment that he smelled the meat. Saliva welled from the sides of his jaws and flooded his mouth.

The female seemed to eager and trusting to wait for him to answer, already her glimmering knife plunged downwards and began to hack at his bonds. The Hunter partially screamed and partially snarled at her, his lips pulled back all the way to his molars, "N- oh!" he roared. The female recoiled faster than he thought a human could and he heard her pulse booming loudly within the tunnels in her flesh.

She recovered strangely fast and a faint grin curled the corners of her mouth. The Hunter followed her closely and calculated every movement and shift in posture.

"Fine," she said softly, "You won't get fed."

More bribery. He would have screamed at her had her offer not been so tempting. Why couldn't he just let her cut the cords and get it over with? The humans had already stripped him of his hoodie and pride, so why would this hurt? The Hunter reminded himself that he hadn't been concious when they had done that and so it had been out of his power, but this, this was in his power.

He whined and growled as his instincts and pride battled with eachother. Finally though, his hunger won over as it had done many times in the past (most of which times ending badly, this current predicament being one) and he pulled his lips over his teeth.

"Oh... kay," he grunted and held out his wrists.

He let her snap the tightly strung cords around his arms and tensed at her touch, it was almost a physical pain and he felt like retreating into shadows everytime her fingers pressed against his flesh.

But it was a relief to get the cords off and he gently rubbed the raw skin that they had chaffed, he had never appreciated the privelage of liberated arms until now. He turned to see the females small hand gun fixed directly on him, it made him feel anxious, especially since her finger was resting on the trigger. All she needed to do was fire a couple rounds in his brain and it'd be over. But she had to hold up her part of the bargain right? to refrain from killing him if he didn't make a move towards her. Not that he trusted her to follow through with such a thing.

"Ok," she sighed and dug one hand into the plastic bag once more, her body not turning away from him. When the hand returned it was holding what looked like meat but it was too dry and brown.

He sniffed, it was meat for sure. But animal meat, cooked animal meat, he wasn't sure if he could eat that. The human leaned to pass it to him but then lost her nerve and dropped it at his feet before swiftly standing up, grabbing her bag and leaving the room, keeping the gun trained on him the entire time. The door closed and locked with a bang.

The Hunter stared at the door for a couple seconds before grabbing the hard meat and tearing at it with sharp teeth. It ripped into long strips fairly easily but when he tried to swallow it whole he nearly choked. Chewing it wasn't much easier due to aforementioned sharp teeth but he managed, cutting the inside of his mouth as he did so and biting his tongue multiple times. It was delicious and he relished every fiber that filled his rumbling stomach. Giving in to the female had definitely been worth it.

But the meat just activated his stomach once more and the hunger pangs were worse than ever. He moaned in even deeper agony and curled over to his side. Yells outside alerted him to the fact that what the female had done was not a shared intent of the party.

It occured to him that he could now easily cut the cords around his ankles, yet he refrained from doing so. He didn't know how long he was going to be kept as a prisoner but as long as he was, it would probably be better to appear harmless and make the humans think they were in control. He nearly laughed at himself, first he had made a deal with a human and now he was feigning weakness in order to gain their favor. He was a miserable excuse for a hunter.

The Hunter began to inspect his wounds, he rubbed off the ointment and tore up the spidery gauze to reveal the labrynth of cuts and sores. His pale, gray skin discolored with red splotches was now covered with angry scabs. It didn't hurt as much anymore when he moved and even though there was a powerful ache throbbing in his head from when the tank punched him, the Hunter was able to tune out the pain.

Sleep tugged at him again and he readily obeyed, his body needed rest to recover from his injuries and he no longer wanted to spend any time in his miserable life.

**My OC is an idiot XD.**

**Anyway, I feel like I have to clear a couple things up. It might seem a bit weird for the survivors to act as (relatively) friendly as they do, going to such lengths as cleaning the Hunters wounds and feeding him, but this is based on the assumption that most people would probably jump at the chance to find any infected that didn't want to rip out their guts (of course the Hunter does want to rip out their guts but seeing as hes incapacitated at the moment, he'll have to wait).**

**Why wouldn't they kill the Hunter even if it didn't attack them right away? Because a seemingly friendly infected could be the cure to the virus, the survivors might not know how the Hunter could be a cure but if they've watched and read any fiction in their lives I think they would have stumbled across one story where there is an individual who retains sanity and who has the ability to manufacture a cure to the stories plague.**

**Please review :D**


	5. Chapter 4: Escape

**Updated this chapter.**

Chapter 4: Escape

The Hunter woke up gradually, light occasionally drifting into his view his waking senses sharpening before he would curl up tighter and welcome back the cozy darkness. But then, the smell of blood tainted the air.

Blood? He raised his head and opened his bleary eyes. Near the gray, locked door rested an undefineable chunk of meat, it was larger than the piece the female had given to him and instead of being hard and cured, this was raw. A moment of pure joy exploded inside him. He swiftly seized it and began to pull off soft chunks with his jaws, growls emerging instinctively from his throat as he fed. He relished every wondeful gulp as the meat began to fill that bottomless ache in his stomach.

But suddenly it was all gone, the meat that had just a couple moments ago weighed heavily in his claws had dissapeared. He whined and growled to himself in frustration and in his anger he leaned down and clawed the cords around his ankles. He wasn't meant to be held in confinement, he was meant to run, leap and see for miles without anything stopping him.

The Hunter rolled over to a crouch, wincing when a couple cuts opened and began to bleed out over his skin. For the first time, he examined the room he was being held captive in. There was a single, reinforced fiberglass window with metal bars blocking him from clawing at it, outside the moon shone with watery rays and silvery light flowed into the room, turning the dull white to a bluish gray. He stared out the window for a moment, remembering his most recent memories of leaping from rooftop to rooftop and feeling the freedom of such activities.

He inspected a couple empty cardboard boxes that had been left over from the humans that had lived in the safehouse long before the current ones. He tore the cardboard boxes to shreds, snarling in satisfaction as the material easily gave way to his claws, the weakness of the cardboard empowered him and he was stumped for a moment when there was none left. Then the Hunter noticed some strange markings on the wall, they were strangely out of place and stood out starkly against the white paint.

He struggled to remember what the markings meant, they were like the words that the human female had said... but visual. He grunted in confusion, why did he know this? Why were there things in his head that he couldn't remember ever experiencing?

Eventually he figured out what one clump of markings meant, the others followed closely and soon he was descerning the full meanings of the sentences written across the wall.

Many of them were names of people with dates beside them, others were blaming the world for the infection and still others were botched attempts at human humour. Most of them contained words that the Hunter was unfamiliar with or the writing too mutated for him to identify. To the Hunter, understanding what the humans meant was like trying to understand an alien, they seemed sad but at the same time angry and uncaring. But he felt like he should know what they meant even though he had no ties with the human species.

He grew bored with the sentences and looked around for something else to occupy him. Nothing. The Hunter growled and jumped over to the door, his muscles still aching from being held stationary for so long. The exposure to the raw moonlight still stung his shadow accustomed eyes and the room smelled thickly of humans and wounds.

He clawed at the door, he didn't know what exactly this would accomplish but he felt he needed to get the humans attention somehow, they couldn't just leave him in this room and forget about him. Besides, he was thirsty.

The clawing didn't seem to be making enough noise to draw the humans attention, frustrated, the Hunter let out a throaty shriek and tackled the door. There was a shuffle from outside and he retreated backwards a couple steps, teeth bared. The door swung open and instantly a gun was pointed in the Hunters face, he lurched back a couple steps in surprise and slowly raised his vision to the brawny, tattooed arms holding the gun.

He obediently fell to his knees, keeping his hands in plain view and his teeth hidden. It was a demeaning and pathetic stance but it was better than the male shooting him, in fact, there was a certain fear that the Hunter felt from the presence of the male, born mostly from the lethal weapon directed at him but also from the anger and outrage he smelled on the male. For a moment he was confused, rousing the males attention was enough to anger it? He was reminded of the witch that had nearly vent her fury upon him. With that thought, the male before him seemed that much more menacing.

The male said a strange word to summon the other humans then stepped to the side and spoke again, "It's finally awake, and it ripped off the rope on its legs," the voice was loud, booming and hard for the Hunter to ignore. Especially since the meaning behind the words could seal his fate.

A couple of the other humans situated behind the male replied and began to speak amongst themselves while the tattooed male kept the gun pointed at the Hunter. Human smells and sounds flooded his senses, smells that were clean of fear and sounds smooth and unhurried instead of panic filled. It was a new experience to encounter humans unafraid of him but also a worrying one, unafraid prey was strong prey.

"So we know you can understand us and that you aren't going to hurt us. Can you speak?" the older male stepped alongside the tattooed one, it smelled strongly of the smoke that one of the infected always carried around and for a moment, the Hunter bristled and bared his teeth. Smokers were bad, they had long tongues that could hold you as tight as any arm and could even pull the limbs from their victim in some circumstances. If he considered any other type of infected to be equal to himself, it would be Smokers.

But his moment of alarm passed and he remembered that the human had been trying to tell him something. The Hunter grunted and tried to shape his voice into a human word, "Wa... water," he croaked softly, the words coming out as a low growl. He didn't care what the human was talking about, he cared that his throat was sore and he wanted it to stop.

The two males looked surprised and the Hunter found that tiring, why were all the humans acting so radically different to how they acted when they normally saw him? He might be wounded and no longer have a coating of mud and blood stuck to his skin, but that did not diminish his willingness to bite them. After a moment the older male turned and said, "Louis, get an extra water bottle." Hope flared in the Hunters chest. Water! They had understood him and were now getting him water!

There was the scrape of feet as a human went to get the requested item, the other humans shifting in order to reinforce the fact that they blocked the only exit. The Hunter dropped his gaze as the older male stared intensly at him, he felt the heat of the males body waft off him in waves, the windy sound of breath pushing in and out of the mouth and the soft pump of hot, delicious blood circulating through flesh. He wanted to jump and expel the energy itching at his claws, he wanted to feast on slithery intestines and scream into the darkness to all who could hear. But he forced himself to suppress those urges for the mean time and dropped his gaze to the red smeared floor.

"Sorry for having to keep you in here. We can't be entirely sure of whether you'll attack us or not," the male continued, "Can you remember yourself before the infection? Do you have a name?" he didn't find any of this particularily interesting but listened out of respect of the older males superiority, the humans had leverage against him now and as long as they had a firm grip on that leverage, he would acknoledge their dominant as his own dominant.

The Hunter was confused for a couple seconds, then it dawned on him that the humans must think that he was one of them... just with the appearances of an infected. But wait a second, before the infection? There was no such thing, as long as the infection was around the Hunter was around, there had been nothing before the infection, just pain and madness.

He shook his head and took a step back.

The tattooed male grunted something to the older male, said male replied thoughtfully, "It could be a weak strand in the virus. I don't know much about sicknesses but it doesn't take a genius to figure that this Hunter's obviously a fluke in the infection."

He didn't understand these words. The human either spoke too fast and left out the emphasis on certain sounds or said words that the Hunter did not yet know. He caught a few, 'weak', 'Hunter', 'infection' and the many less important words, he sensed the male was talking about him but didn't grasp the full meaning of the sentence. Could it maybe be saying that he was weak? The Hunter nearly pounced the male at that relevation.

The male- Louis -came back with a translucent cylinder filled with liquid. The dark-skinned male was smaller and slighter than the tattooed male but less imposing and agressive, Louis smelled of soap and relative clean skin if one could ignore the omnipresent smell of filth and gore.

The older male took the liquid cylinder and stretched out his calloused hand to the Hunter. The Hunter hesitated and contemplated the intents of the male. Was the hand that gripped the cylinder poised to snake out and grab him or to actually fufill what it appeared to? He could easily imagine the older male suddenly snaring him in its long fingers and wounding him in some way or another.

He swallowed and tasted the dryness in his mouth and the soreness of his throat, he needed water and until he got it, all other threats were void. The humans had not yet done any physical harm to him and so he had no reason to distrust them. The Hunter slowly pawed forwards on four legs and studied the older male and tattooed male. The older male seemed honest and there was no malice in his gaze, he even seemed what could be described as happy, the tattooed male on the other hand was less than content, a deep scowl on his face and his hands tense at the gun. It set him on edge and wished that he could jump upwards to safety.

The older male murmered something and gestured, the tattooed male grunted and lowered the gun slightly. At this he relaxed, the male wasn't going to shoot him due to the older males apparant dominance. He tentatively grasped the water bottle in his hands and retreated to the opposite side to the room as quickly as possible, he wanted to be as far away from the tattooed male as possible while he drank.

He frantically began to gnaw at the white, serrated lid, but it did not oblige and instead of tearing crisply it bent with his teeth and twisted when he yanked. The Hunter snarled at the bottle to indimidate it into opening before loosing his patience and clawing open the upper portion of the bottle. Water swelled over his claws and half of it splashed to the ground, the Hunter frantically chewed at the slashes he had created and poured the wonderful, lukewarm liquid into his mouth. The effect was instantaneous, his mouth was no longer parched his sore throat soothed back into shape, the Hunter growled softly in pleasure and downed the whole bottle. It was then that he realized that the humans had left, leaving a package behind them.

It would be safe right? The Hunter abandoned the drained water bottle and grabbed the package in his jaws. It easily tore and he clawed the unseen object out of the bag. It was more meat! Lots of it!

The Hunter ripped into it, adrenaline pumping in his ears and chest working up and down. He smelled blood hang thickly in the air and cloy around him, rage roared inside him and he slashed unmercifully at the meat, tugging red strands from the main body and filling his jaws. Blood covered his face and chest, growls issued from his lungs and all he could think of was destroying everything that moved. All too soon the meat was gone and his hunger finally sated, but he still felt the urge to claw and chase.

The Hunter turned to the writing on the wall and shrieked at it, blood dripping from his face and dribbling down his chest. The human writing was a blemish on his domain, a puny human thing to be terminated. He jumped towards the wall and dug his claws into the paint and hard material underneath. The paint gave away easily, falling into flaky pieces and collecting around his claws, the wall however proved to be some resistance and sent him into a fit of crazed snarling.

The Hunter tackled the wall and slashed his claws along the writing, gouging out the offensive words and remarking it with his own slashes.

He panted, the reminants of his bloodlust beginning to dissapate, he laughed shakily to himself. The humans thought they were better did they? they thought that they could lock him up like an animal? No. He could escape them.

The Hunter turned to the barred window and felt fury rise up in him again, terrible, wonderful fury. He seized one of the bars and pulled himself up to the small ledge, it was tiny, barely large enough for him to perch on but it would do.

The Hunter dug his claws into the ceiling above him to steady the shock and kicked the solid bars with his powerful legs. At first nothing happened and he growled at being so close to escape yet so, painfully far away. He could see the shapes of the outside world! But the second time proved more successful and he felt something in the metal bar give. Invigorated, the Hunter kicked with his full strength and felt the bar slide out of its stubborn position and clatter loudly to the ground.

He made quick work of the other bars, forming a small pile of metal back on the floor. Now all he had to do was shatter the fiberglass and squeeze through.

A bang not of his own making sounded past the door and the Hunter's heart skipped a beat, fear flooding down his blood. They were going to catch him! He bashed his shoulder into the glass and felt the edges scrape his shoulder and leave jagged streaks painfully simaliar to the others that patterned his body. But he didn't care, he had to get out, he couldn't take the suffocating walls on all sides or the lack of freedom to do what he wished.

The door swung open and a yell invaded the room. The Hunter didn't stay any longer to clear away the glass teeth stuck to the window and pushed himself out with a defiant hiss.

That was when he realized that the safehouse was a lot further up than he thought.

The Hunter felt his stomach lurch with the feeling of unanticipated freefall and felt blind against the sudden darkness of the night. But he felt surprisingly comfortable in the air, much more than when the humans had been trying to comunicate with him. He twisted around and stretched out his hand, grabbing hold of the side of the building and feeling his claws tear flawlessly through the brick due to his acceleration. The Hunter pulled himself closer to the wall with his grip then spun around and kicked out with his legs.

He was propelled forwards and back into a controlled state, the Hunter landed on the roof of the building opposite to the one he had just escaped from. He breathed in deeply, tasting the scents of blood and gore, fear and pain. Yells whispered their way up from the open window of the saferoom and the Hunter could not help but scream in response. He had fooled the stupid humans and gotten a full stomach after all.

He analyzed his surroundings. The moon hung heavily in the air and beat upon the land with cold light, the streetlamps as usual had flickered to life before the sun had set- like they had anticipated the nightfall. The Hunter was deep in the city, surrounded by skyscrapers and other buildings glistening with confusing windows, below him hundreds of cars were forever frozen in their battle against the others and huge pits were dug where a tank had ripped out blocks of cement. The humans yells had attracted a small gang of common infected whom were now eyeing him closely, as if expecting him to do something, he snarled at them in digust, common infected were weak and helpless but they were annoying, always getting in the way when he tried to pounce and making the humans cautious long before he had a chance to get to them.

He turned away from the common infected, they might be frusterating but there was nothing he could do about it, they were just another difficulty in a city of difficulties.

The Hunter concentrated on pinpointing where exactly he was, when he had been stumbling through the streets with blood pumping from his wounds, he hadn't bothered to keep track of where he was heading, all he had been thinking about was the smell of human. But now he regretted his habit of only thinking of the present. He decided that he would have an easier time recognizing where he was if he had a better view.

The Hunter ran forwards, his gait comprised mostly of long leaps due to his ridiculously long legs in contrast with his arms, and pushed himself off the edge of the building. He felt the strain on his body from his injuries and the alien weight of meat in his stomach and landed only halfway up the skyscraper he had been aiming for, his claws digging fruitlessly into the weak glass. He began to panic, he was falling! falling without control! The world was spinning around him, laughing and screaming.

He barked in fear and felt himself slipping down towards imminent death, towards the bitterly hard earth below him and the common infected that would pick at his corpse...

In a final effort, he twisted around to meet his fate and landed heavily on the metal roof of a car. He groaned inwardly and clutched his stomach, don't throw up, don't throw up. Luckily he managed to hang onto his meal and rolled off the car, his palms, knees and feet feeling numb with pain. He was so stupid, thinking that after being shot full of glass and drained of blood that he would be just as strong as ever. His limbs shook and he suddenly felt frail and small in this world of predators.

The Hunter stood up and wiped the dirt from his exposed flesh, glancing briefly at the huge gashes his claws had made in the metal of the yellow car. He then remembered how powerful he was, a strong, solitary hunter, not some infantile common. He dashed over to an alley across the frozen street and jumped onto the intricate criss-crossing poles of a fire escape. Before he clambered upwards though, some colors caught his eye.

More human markings painted the brick of the side of the building, broadcasting their views in confusing reds and blues. The Hunter studied them for a second before growing bored, the graffiti was obviously in a different type of marking than the one he was accustomed to.

Luckily the building that the fire escape clung to was fairly tall and enabled him to survey a large portion of the city. He crouched awkwardly on one of the large large vents situated on top of the roof and felt a weird, bitter feeling come over his body as he strained to recognize the buildings. It wasn't quite pain but was extremely uncomfortable, he shivered and instinctively wrapped his arms around his chest. His warm breath smoked in the air and he remembered that without his hoodie, he was once more exposed to the elements.

He nearly laughed, he'd been so used to eating, sleeping, jumping and spending every second of his time in the dense sweatshirt that he had forgotten that it wasn't a part of his body, that it was actually some extra skin. The Hunter grimaced and lost the slight grin that brought pain to certain muscles in his face, the humans had taken his hoodie so he would have to get another.

He paused for a moment, there was no doubt that another hunter would have tresspassed into the boundaries of the city during his emprisonment. He almost let out a territorial scream before stopping himself. No, he was too vulnerable without a layer of fabric between him and the slicing claws of his adversary.

He felt like a human without a shadow over his face or the bloody fabric to keep him warm, he couldn't stay like this, without his hoodie he wasn't hunter, he wasn't himself. In the safehouse it had been different, everything had been confused and mixed, the rules of the outside world no longer applying. But now, once again in the harsh reality where he had to fight for every second of his life, he didn't feel like himself. He jumped over to the side of an apartment building and shattered the thick glass with his shoulder, yelping as a chunk made its way into his flesh. He jumped into the apartment room and pulled out the glass, very accustomed to the pain it brought by now yet still angry at himself for making such a foolish mistake. Think before you act!

The room was wholly human, even more so than the safehouse had been. In fact, to compare the apartment to the safehouse was ridiculous, every detail in this new environment screamed luxery and comfort. The Hunter found it repulsive, a tool for everything, soft material lining the floor and rich colors hurting his eyes. For a moment he was disoriented, colors everywhere, shapes too small and detailed for him to make out, just a jumbled rainbow so different from the pale colors outside.

A sharp pain dug into his forehead and he steadied himself, pushing against the cupboard that he had crashed into. The colors still confused him somewhat and the miserable beginnings of a headache threatened to take hold but he no longer stumbled blindly through the maze. The Hunter curled his lip at the smell of human and wrinkled the skin on his nose into a full snarl, whatever the human had sprayed into the air when it had lived still clung to the fabrics of the room smelled downright horrible, worse than even the most rotten infected corpse or things that leaked from the bottoms of torn garbage bags. He couldn't even describe it, just that it was overpowering and killed all sense of smell.

Everywhere he went he crashed into something, stubbed his toes or sent some fragile, breakable object plummeting to the ground. He whined in distress, among the infected he was one of the smallest and most agile, here in this human abode he felt like a tank.

The corner of a counter suddenly jumped out from nowhere and he hit it with his hip. The Hunter screeched in alarm, it felt like he had been shot! But the pain subsided far more quickly than any bullet wound and he slowly calmed down and inspected the corner. Nothing abnormal about it, no hidden blade or weapon. He shook his head and rubbed his bruise.

Clothes... where would they be kept? He paced back and forth in the human kitchen (wary of any materializing corners) before the answer finally came to him, borne from that innate but vague knowledge of human tools and customs. The Hunter sniffed blindly before remembering that his sense of smell was doused by that terrible human scent and decided that exploring the closest hallway would eventually lead him to the humans sleeping quarters.

After poking his head into a couple assorted rooms, he found one that had a huge, fluffy object in the middle he identified as a bed. It was clean and white, almost refreshing amidst the tangling colors in the other rooms. But the Hunter didn't give into the temptation to leap on it and sink into warmth, he had to find a suitable hoodie and leave. That was it.

He looked around at the dresser and recoiled suddenly, a dead body leaned against one of the vertical, rectangular objects. It was partially eaten, with random chunks ripped away and exposing the white bone and fleshy organs beneath. He sighed in relief, for a moment he had thought that it had been a jockey, the absolute most annoying infected of them all. The Hunter was tempted to eat some of the carcass but lifted his lip when he spotted a huge patch of bulbous, fuzzy growths coating one side of the body.

Mold was bad, very bad. The Hunter had eaten meat with mold on it once and been sick for a weak, throwing up everything in his stomach and then some. He shivered from the memory and stayed well away from the evil mold, keeping to one side of the dresser as he opened the drawers with inept claws. The top ones were full of socks and shirts, all plastered with that same horrible scent. And repeatedly opening drawers filled to the brim with scent laden fabrics did not aid in this. Finally he found a black hoodie and snarled in victory. At last! He ripped it eagerly over his head.

The Hunter hissed when his claws tore a gash in the fabric and struggled to push them through the tight elastic at the end of the sleeves. He eventually succeeded and purred when shadow once more ran across his face, sweet wonderful shade that protected his eyes from harsh light. But there was one problem, he observed as he inspected the loose fabric, there was no duct tape to keep him areodynamic and the sweatshirt stank of whatever the human sprayed. He felt longing for his old hoodie but quickly drove off such thoughts, nostaligia wasn't something he could waste a second over.

The Hunter looked through the drawers once more in search of duct tape but found nothing. He snarled in annoyance and wished he could kill those humans for taking away his hoodie, what had possessed them to do that!

But there were more important matters at hand than merely his comfort, and although the human stink was close to unbearable, eventually layers of blood and mud would help to mask it, rain might even wash it out. For now though, he would have to keep any possible intruders at bay without such luxuries.

The Hunter made his way out of the bedroom and through the kitchen with little shows of clumsiness, pausing the investigate the faint smell of meat then retreating when he found it to be as moldy as the human corpse. But luckily he wasn't very hungry, the meat supplied by the humans would last for a couple days at the least.

He leapt out of the apartment and landed heavily on the opposite rooftop, the gravel on the roof dug into his hands and clung stubbornly to the skin. He would have to get used to the greater wind resistance the hoodie created until he could find some duct tape. His nose stung from the sudden burst of night air and forced him to breath through his mouth. It was a relief to at least taste the familiar scents of gore and to be forever free of confined spaces.

The Hunters breath clouded from his jaws and he listened for the familiar screech of a hunter to rise over the city. The groans of tanks, the grunts of commons and the coughs of smokers all presented themselves to him, but he could care less about the other infected. They hunted differently than him and took prey that he could not and subsequently did not pose a threat to his own safety (with the exception of tanks). He both anticipated and dreaded the scream of a hunter to rise up over the rooftops, one part of him snarling to just get it over with and stop hoping there was a chance that no intruders had come and another part still clinging feebly to aforementioned hope.

Eventually his patience burned up and he screamed in order to get the attention of any hunter in the vicinity. His voice rang loudly through the air then fell silent. It unsettled him.

The air was tense as the Hunter waited for a response, he shifted from leg to leg.

A return shriek sounded in the distance. He felt both enraged and horrified. He wasn't sure if he was fit enough to drive out another solitary hunter, the only chance he had would be if the hunter that had called was a stray social hunter.

Then, another scream followed the first one, far too quickly for the same hunter to have made it.

Yay for cheesy endings!

Explanation for why the Hunter got so angry after he was eating: because he went a bit crazed due to the blood, kinda like how wolves will start off hunting one livestock animal and then end up killing them all. Last and most important rule when dealing with hunters: never feed them after midnight.

Thank you to both Demon-Kagetsuki for you review deathbybunnies for your helpful constructive critizism. I've tried my best to incorporate more of what the Hunters feelings are in this chapter along with the other criteria you suggested.


	6. Authors note

**I'm going to be updating the previous chapters since I've figured out the style in which I'll be writing this story from now on. Not much plot wise will change but I'll be editing and adding more information.**

**So, no new chapters until I get this done. It shouldn't take that long though, I already finished chapter four as you can see.**

**Please review! :D**


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